I next bethought me of the privileges of my rank. Could I, as an R. H., accept the vulgar hazards of a personal encounter? Would not such conduct be derogatory in one to whom great destinies might one day be committed? Not that I lent myself, be it remarked, to the delusion of being a prince; but that I felt, if the line of conduct would be objectionable to men in my rank and condition, it inevitably followed that it must be bad. What I could neither do as the descendant of St. Louis, or the son of Peter Potts, must needs be wrong. These were the grievous meditations of that long, long night; and though I arose from the hard table, weary and with aching bones, I blessed the pinkish-gray light that ushered in the day. I had scarcely completed a very rapid toilet, when François came with a message from Mrs. Keats, “hoping I had rested well, and begging to know at what hour it was my pleasure to continue the journey.” There was an evident astonishment in the fellow's face at the embassy with which he was charged; and though he delivered the message with reasonable propriety, there was a certain something in his look that said, “What delusion is this you have thrown around the old lady?”
“Say that I am ready, François; that I am even impatient to be off, and the sooner we start the better.”
This I uttered with all my heart; for I was eager to get away before the odious German should be stirring, and could not subdue my anxiety to avoid meeting him again. There was every reason to expect that we should get off unnoticed, and I hastened out myself to order the horses and stimulate the postilions to greater activity. This was no labor of love, I promise you! The sluggardly inertness of that people passes all belief; entreaties, objurgations, curses, even bribes could not move them. They never admitted such a possibility as haste, and stumped about in their wooden shoes or iron-bound boots, searching for articles of horse-gear under bundles of hay or stacks of firewood, as though it was the very first time in their lives that post-horses had ever been required in that locality. “Make a great people out of such materials as these!” muttered I; “what rubbish to imagine it! How, with such intolerable apathy, are they to be moved? Where everything proceeds at the same regulated slowness, how can justice ever overtake crime? When can truth come up with falsehood? Whichever starts first here, must inevitably win.” To urge the creatures on by example, I assisted with my own hands to put on the harness; not, I will own, with much advantage to speed, for I put the collar on upside down, and, in revenge for the indignity, the beast planted one of his feet upon me, and almost drove the cock of his shoe through my instep. Almost mad with pain and passion, I limped away into the garden, and sat down in a damp summer-house. A sleepless night, a lazy ostler, and a bruised foot are, after all, not stunning calamities; but there are moments when our jarred nerves jangle at the slightest touch, and even the most trivial inconveniences grow to the size of afflictions.
“We began to fear you were lost, sir,” said François, breaking in upon my gloomy revery I cannot say how long after. “The horses have been at the door this half-hour, and all the house searching after you.”
I did not deign a reply, but followed him, as he led me by a short path to the house. Mrs. Keats and Miss Herbert had taken their places inside the carriage, and, to my ineffable disgust, there was the German chatting with them at the door, and actually presenting a bouquet the landlord had just culled for her. Unable to confront the fellow with that contemptuous indifference which I knew with a little time and preparation I could summon to my aid, I scaled up to my leathern attic and let down the blinds.
“Do you mean,” said I, through a small slit in my curtain,—“do you mean to sit smoking there all day? Will you never drive on?” And now, with a crash of bolts and a jarring of cordage, like what announced the launch of a small ship, the heavy conveniency lurched, surged, and, after two or three convulsive bounds, lumbered along, and we started on our day's journey. As we bumped along, I remembered that I had never wished the ladies a “good-morning,” nor addressed them in any way; so completely had my selfish preoccupation immersed me in my own annoyances, that I actually forgot the commonest attentions of every-day life. I was pained by this rudeness on my part, and waited with impatience for our first change of horses to repair my omission. Before, however, we had gone a couple of miles, the little window at my back was opened, and I heard the old lady's voice, asking if I had ever chanced upon a more comfortable country inn or with better beds.
“Not bad,—not bad,” said I, peevishly. “I had such a mass of letters to write that I got little sleep. In fact, I scarcely could say I took any rest.”
While the old lady expressed her regretful condolences at this, I saw that Miss Herbert pinched her lips together as if to avoid a laugh, and the bitter thought crossed me, “She knows it all!”
“I am easily put out, besides,” said I. “That is, at certain times I am easily irritated, and a vulgar German fellow who supped with us last night so ruffled my temper that I assure you he continued to go through my head till morning.”
“Oh, don't call him vulgar!” broke in Miss Herbert; “surely there could be nothing more quiet or unpretending than his manners.”